The Mooring Mast
Pacific Lutheran University student Justin Buchanan had a hard time coming up with a headline for a story on an intramural dodge ball game. The team that lost goes by "Team FSU," but partly to avoid confusion with the other FSU, he went with what the abbreviation stands for. Thus: "F--- S--- Up drops the ball." Among other reasons, Buchanan explains, "I honestly believed the headline was not going to be an issue, because rebelliousness is synonymous with in our culture, especially with the on going Occupy protests," he writes. The university removed the headline and link from the student newspaper website Friday morning, citing "obscenity issues" and Associated Press style that says profanity shouldn't be used without a compelling reason. The website was restored after the student journalists changed the headline.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Steve Myers was the managing editor of Poynter.org until August 2012, when he became the deputy managing editor and senior staff writer for The Lens, a nonprofit investigative news site in New Orleans.
Before working at Poynter Online, Steve spent about six years in Mobile, Ala., as a reporter for the Press-Register, focusing on local government accountability. He was a 2006 Ohio State University Kiplinger Fellow and an Open Society Institute Katrina Media Fellow.
Contact him by email at myers.news@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @myersnews.